Author Contributor Announcement – Nicole Kimberling

Many of you already know Nicole Kimberling from her books and more recently, her occasional columns on the site. Today I’m pleased to announce that effective January, 2012 Nicole has agreed, after a few glasses of virtual wine, 🙂 to become an official author contributor, which means that she will be writing a column approximately every two months. I asked her to send me a funny bio to accompany this announcement and she forwarded this one which I don’t think is that funny and shows that she doesn’t follow instructions. 😆

Nicole Kimberling lives in Bellingham, Washington with her partner, Dawn Kimberling and two bad cats. Her novel, Turnskin, won the Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror. When not writing novels or acting as the editor for Blind Eye Books, she is a professional line cook. Her hobbies include troublemaking, rabble-rousing, and disturbing the staus quo. Also, she can dance to any song, so long as it has a tempo of more than 115 beats per minute.

Please join me in welcoming Nicole although it does seem a little bit late in the day considering she has been contributing essays for several months. 🙂 I know that she will be an even more valuable contributor to the site in the future with her always original takes on what’s going on in the world of publishing and elsewhere and I look forward to her posts. The boyz in the hot tub invited her to join them in their New Year’s Day melee, but if she’s smart she won’t accept because their hands are everywhere. 🙂 Anyway they sent her this virtual glass of champagne to celebrate.

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Late as usual, but nevertheless – welcome Nicole! Looking forward to reading more of your posts (I greatly enjoyed the past ones) Have a good time and remember getting out of the hot tub before you get too wrinkly 😯 😀

I’ll see what I can come up with. A lot of stuff is hard to replicate without commercial equipment and a legion of prep cooks…

Okay, here’s one: Pasta Alfredo.

Cook a couple of portions of pasta in salted, oiled water till they’re aldente, reserving about 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid. Drain, toss with oil and set aside.

In a large skillet–larger than you think you need and preferably nonstick if you’re working at home, heat a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of olive oil. When the butter is foamy, add a tablespoon of chopped garlic.

Stir for a few seconds. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream (you must only use heavy cream, preferably something that’s about 40% milkfat) 1/4 cup white wine a of pinch white pepper a pinch of salt and a tiny, tiny pinch of nutmeg–like 12 grains.

Stir for a few seconds till bubbly. Add pasta, reserved water and a scant handful of grated parmasean cheese (sp?)–the kind that’s in long shreds, not the powdery stuff–keep stirring until the sauce reduces to the desired consistency. Don’t burn it. It’s easy to burn it. If you’re not using a gas range, but an electric burner, and it seems to be getting crispy or separating, take it off the burner, rather than turning it down because it won’t cool fast enough.

If the sauce separates during cooking, add an additional tablespoon of cream until it comes back together.

This whole process (minus the cooking time for the pasta) should take about three minutes.

Divide into two dishes (pasta bowls would be best, but really it doesn’t matter all that much if the sauce is thick enough). Wipe the edges of the dishes. Garnish with additional cheese, but not too much.

Hey no problem. Tonight, while I was working the Friday night dinner service, I mentioned to my coworker–a guy I’ve worked with for 7 years now–that I blogged this recipe. He said, “Alfredo? Why didn’t you pick something actually easy?”

So I apologize if making this recipe ends up being not as easy as it sounds…but I still think you can do it! 😎